10 October 2018 12:54 PM

An Autumn Morning in Durham City

On Tuesday morning, a perfect English autumn morning, I was lucky enough to be in Durham, one of the loveliest places in England especially at this time of year. The night before, I had attended a very beautifully sung evensong amid the ancient arches of the astonishing cathedral, before taking part in a Durham Union debate on the legalisation of drugs. In this, as so often happens, I had won the argument and lost the vote, finishing the evening by continuing the argument in the Union bar (no, I wasn’t drinking, just arguing).

So I was up unusually late, planning a leisurely day off with a stop in York on my way south, and then the joyous seclusion of a non-stop train from York to London. I strolled the long way to the station, along the wooded banks of the River Wear which curves round the hill on which Cathedral and Castle stand. The only other place I know with such a spectacular river loop is Berne, the Swiss capital, which has miraculously never attracted the tourism its beauty would justify. People travel the world in search of such sights yet never venture to visit glories which are close at hand.

Then, as I headed towards the hillside where the Durham railway station sits, my eye was suddenly caught by a middle-aged woman, her face full of urgency, silently beckoning to me. Beside her a man was slumped on the pavement. I have decided to tell the story that follows because I feel a need to tell it, not because it puts me in a good light, because it doesn’t really (my time was my own that day, I did nothing arduous or brave). I hurried over and helped him to his feet, which turned out not to be much use, as he very soon sank down again, unable to stand. Without invading this couple’s privacy, I can only say that he had collapsed quite suddenly after a morning of shopping in the town, just as they waited for a bus to take them home. The couple were only a very few years further along the road of life than I am, but had obviously lived (as many people in the North have done) more arduous lives than I. He suffered from various conditions but had not been struck down in the street at noonday before. Very luckily, I was not the only person who had come to their aid. A lovely young woman whom I shall call Susanna dialled 999, called the ambulance, did the talking to the despatchers and was, for the next hour, a huge source of confidence, good humour and comfort (nipping off for a few minutes in mid-crisis to cancel her gym session, leaving me of all people in sole charge).

For it took about an hour for the ambulance to come. I understand why this was, and do not complain in general. There are never enough ambulances. Silly people call them for bad reasons, and road accidents or heart attacks can suddenly divert them from moderately urgent calls such as the one I was involved in. It was rather frustrating to hear sirens, hope for immediate succour, and then listen to them fade into the distance and realise that they were not for us. I now know that there was no great danger in the delay. I wasn't so sure at the time. The man recovered enough to be able to sit on the narrow bench in the bus shelter, though he was plainly still very weak. His wife, I think, was the more distressed of the two, feeling the foundations of her life shaking beneath her. I guessed this from her face, since she said very little the whole time, though I think that at more than one moment she was trembling. All I did was to stay, as I say, no great trouble to me, but I felt that I should and must do so, even if it did no obvious good and it would have made no material difference if I had strolled away. Yet I couldn’t. I knew very deeply that it was my duty to stay. So did Susanna, who had grown up in a Britain utterly different to mine, though I tend to think women are just better in these sorts of crises. And when the ambulance came, and the big, competent paramedics helped the man into the vehicle, his wife suddenly turned towards me and we - both undemonstrative, reserved people from a generation not much given to impromptu embraces - instinctively hugged each other. And I felt very strongly, as I do when I write this, that I was the one who had been given an important gift that morning.

Beautiful story, it was wonderful that PH and S stayed with the couple, very comforting. The article reminded me that since all the terror attacks these past 5 years, I started carrying a Rosary in my purse, because when I would watch the news about how good samaritans helped the suffering and dying, I wondered,, they might have but I never heard on the news if they tried to make sure the injured or dying person was "Saved", Romans 10: 9-10 "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved". I hope if I am ever in that type of situation, of course I would call for medical help but also say Romans 10:9-10 with the Rosary.

A moving account of a quotidian episode. As for nice river curves, I have two suggestions other than Berne and the one PH describes. One is the Tagus river as it curls around Toledo on its way to Lisbon (where I live). The other is the Douro river approaching Pinhão, in Northern Portugal. I leave two links for these two beautiful places.

As 'odd and tangential leaps' go I think my quoting Thatcher 'there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families' in response to PH's 'I knew very deeply that it was my duty to stay. So did Susanna, who had grown up in a Britain utterly different to mine,' is certainly 'bested' by obesity and gulags.
PH writes 'The couple were only a very few years further along the road of life than I am, but had obviously lived (as many people in the North have done) more arduous lives than I'
Perhaps the sufferer was once employed in heavy industry or the mining industry in Yorkshire. Cortonwood colliery was the tipping point of the miners strike. Perhaps he was one of what the Iron Lady called 'the enemy within'.

In response to TS's comment below (12 Oct), referencing my comment about London - I must add that, over all, my experience of living in London for a few years was a positive one. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. For all the bad things, there were at least an equal number that were good. It may be significantly different now, I wouldn't know. But I found it exciting, fascinating, sometimes scary. It's quite an amazing place. And it's like no where else I've lived in or visited in the UK.

Loved reading this, thank you. I know you do not want praise for your actions and I understand why. Often giving is far greater than receiving as you say; you felt you had been given something rather than the other way around.
I think, that whilst you felt you hadn't really done all that much, gentle women, like my own mother, often worry about things we may not initially think of, such as how to manage when the ambulance arrives, what to say etc and having someone else to share the burden, even a stranger, is of great reassurance. My mother who has recently had a few emergencies with my father, for instance, would worry about driving to the hospital, late at night, or how to give directions for the ambulance to their very secluded home. There can be any number of things, many of us take for granted so don't think about.
You did your Christian duty and you rightly felt good about it.

I enjoyed the comment by CaliforniaBill | 11 October 2018 at 03:18 PM. It reminded me of an incident many years ago when I was living in Durban, South Africa.

There was a knock at my door, and when I answered it there stood a well-dressed middle-aged Black man. He explained that he was a visiting Xhosa (Durban is a Zulu area) and that the Zulus had robbed him, and could I help him out with the train fare back home?

Being well acquainted with the ancient feud between Zulus and Xhosas, and the historical reasons for it, I found his story plausible and gave him the money. He thanked me profusely and promised to return in a day or two to repay me. Needless to say, he didn't.

Some months later, there was another knock at my door, and there stood the same fellow, dressed in the same suit, with the same story. I sent him away with a flea in his ear.

There is a serious aspect to this. In Africa people often pretend to be accident/assault/illness victims to act as bait. When somebody stops to help him a band of accomplices jump out and rob the Good Samaritan.

It is not confined to Africa. There is an amusing Indian video clip in which a motorcyclist stops to help an injured man at the roadside. As he walks back to the man another man runs out from the bushes, jumps on the motorbike and rides away. A second motorbike picks up the "injured" man, and rides off.

The victim gets out his phone to call the police, whereupon another motorbike rides slowly past and its pillion passenger grabs his phone. Obviously that was staged, but what makes it funny was that it could so easily be true.

Given the way our green and pleasant land has been flooded with Third Worlders,while our authorities make little or no attempt to check their provenance, I should advise Peter Hitchens not to repeat his act of kindliness, lest he fall victim to those accomplices.

I realise Mr. Hitchens feels he deserves no praise for his actions here. I fear many others, however, wouldn't have acted in the same way. I hope I would have. A touching story which (as much as anything can) transcends politics.

As much as I enjoy reading your blog in general, this one was particularly enjoyable to read. And I imagine myself to have also experienced that same feeling of redundancy and uselessness had I been in the same (or similar) situation. Still, moral support can be just as valuable as material support in such circumstances. From what you describe, the fact that you were just there clearly meant a lot, especially to the middle-aged lady.

Interesting post and also the commentary from Peter Sullivan about witnessing an assault in London. I have just returned to my native Northern Ireland after 30 years in the capital - the decency and warmth of Ulster people is so incredible to experience again after the past decade of utter awfulness in London. You certainly cannot buy the kind of old-fashioned values, standards and codes of respect I see around me now every day.

I’ve always wanted a PH suggestion on the French Revolution as well, but I now see why I’ve never seen one.

My own suggestion is reading Stefan Zweig wonderful biography of Marie Antoinette. It is beautifully written, well researched, full of excitement, and places you right in the midst of the revolution. It taught me a lot - it makes you understand the individual stories and characters that brought it about, but also the underlying national and international mood. It’s no date by date history book, it’s full of gossip, but for me that is the most enjoyable way to learn history.

"I didn't think bringing up Thatcher would so quickly leap to obesity and gulags"

I don't expect you thought you'd get so roundly bested in argument either. It was you who made the rather odd and tangential leap from a heart warming story to Thatcher - now you're insinuating anyone who disagrees with you has a mental problem.

I think for some people - I'm unsure how high a percentage it is - the sense of duty Mr Hitchens writes about comes naturally. In circumstances such as the one he found himself in, for some it is never open to question what they should do. The most memorable example in my own life is helping, as best I could, a young woman travelling alone on a busy night bus, as it headed towards Camden, where she lived. It was ten years ago. She was sitting next to me, but we hadn't spoken. Having signalled to a group of rowdy young people standing in the aisle, mainly female (I will withold any further description of them) that she couldn't reach the window they wanted opening, one instantly attacked her, and the rest piled in. I was caught up in it - basically with my hands over my head to try to protect myself as various blows rained down and a surge of bodies pushed against me. It lasted about twenty or thirty seconds. Luckily the next stop was the right one for the woman attacked. She was in a state of shock, her face was scratched in many places and clumps of her hair had been pulled out. I got off the bus with her. She agreed I could walk her to her flat, which was some distance away. The taxi I phoned while standing outside her door had agreed the fare in advance, but on turning up they inflated it. I stupidly turned them down and, not knowing the place, ended up wandering about for a long time trying to find the main road and bus stop, in deserted streets you really don't want to be wandering around in at that hour. I finally got home, exhausted, but my good deed was done.

I never knew her name. I sometimes wonder what effect it had on her. It was such an unjustified attack and must have been quite a traumatic experience. Sometimes you don't need to be tired of life to be tired of London.

I didn't think bringing up Thatcher would so quickly leap to obesity and gulags (this sort of hysteria led Thatcher to treat the NUM as 'the enemy within') but here's one such quote in greater detail;

'I think we have been through a period when too many people have been given to understand that when they have a problem it is government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They are casting their problems on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. People have got their entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There is no such thing as an entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.'

A variation on this appeared in an interview with Thatcher from Women's Own

It's not peculiar to Thatcher, same sort of thing happened to civil society and social bonds across the pond under Reagan deregulation and privatisation. I don't think the Rolling Stones tax avoidance will generate much sympathy on this blog, especially not as moral guardians of the sort of modern selflessness demonstrated in this post.

Just to avoid confusion, the MarkH below who is asking about the French Revolution is not me, who is Mark H. I would ask posters to be very observant on this, as I don't wish to be confused with someone else using an almost identical nomenclature.

And I would never use 'Peter', only Mr Hitchens or PH, since I recall our host once indicating that he dislikes being called Peter by posters he doesn't know.

DW....Did you live through the 1970s?, with endless industrial strikes, and pathetic state owned subsided industries falling apart? I did. A nation in which many of the brightest people left the country. Even Rock Stars like the Rolling Stones left to get away from 98% tax rates. Mrs Thatcher just speeded up the inevitable collapse of a bankrupted system. A system that would soon collapse a few years later all across Eastern Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union. Even the Chinese abondoned Marxist economic theory and have since lifted about 500 million people out of abject poverty.

Mrs Thatchers belief that individuals needed to try and find solutions for themselves still rings true today. I’m always slightly confused by the notion of poverty coexisting with an obesity crises. There weren’t too many fat people in the 1930s depression. Try going to parts of poverty stricken Africa, you won’t find many obese people there. How about obese people stop eating so much crap food? You don’t need a government for people to know to stop putting too much food in their mouths. Or is our left wing victim obsessed education system so dumbed down that even that is too complicated?

Did Mrs Thatcher get everything right? Of course not. No one ever can. You will never create the perfect world. That is the problem with leftists. They are utopians who always believe they can create a paradise. So far every one of their attempts has failed, usually with endless amounts of blood, state dictatorship, and secret police and gulags.

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